"O mother!" cried Michel, passionately embracing the horrified Agatha, "you have made an implacable enemy in order to preserve me from enemies who, if not imaginary, are powerless! Dear, adored mother, I will never leave you again, by day or night. I will sleep across your door, and if your son's love is helpless to preserve you, it will be because Providence abandons mankind altogether!" "My child," said Agatha, pressing him to her heart, "have no fear. I am sorely distressed by all that that man has brought back to my mind, but not alarmed by his unreasonable anger. The secret of your birth could not safely have been revealed to him any sooner, for you see the effect that revelation produced upon him. But the time has come when I have nothing to fear, so far as you are concerned, save his personal resentment, and that we will find a way to disarm. The vengeance of the Palmarosas will die out with Cardinal Hieronimo's last breath, which it may be that he is breathing at this very moment. If it was an error to turn that vengeance aside by the help of Carmelo, that error is chargeable to Fra Angelo, who thinks that he knows mankind because he has always lived with men outside the pale of society, brigands and monks. But I trust still to his marvellous instinct. This man, who has just shown himself to us in such an evil light, and whom I cannot look upon without the most intense suffering, because he reminds me of the author of all my misfortunes, is not unworthy perhaps of the generous impulse which led you to call him brother. He is a tiger in his wrath, a fox in his reflections; but between his hours of rage and his hours of treachery, there may be intervals of prostration when human feelings resume their sway and extort from him tears of regret and longing; we shall be able to reform him, I trust! Kindness and loyal dealing should find the weak spot in his armor. At the moment that he cursed you, I saw that he hesitated, forced back his tears. His father--your father, Michel!--had a profound and intense susceptibility even amid his wild and wicked habits; I saw him sob at my feet after he had almost strangled me to stifle my shrieks. Later I saw him at the altar, ashamed and penitent, when he married me; and despite the abhorrence and terror with which he always inspired me, I was sorry myself, when he died, that I had not forgiven him. I trembled at the thought of him, but I never dared to curse his memory; and since I have had you with me once more, O my beloved son! I have tried to rehabilitate him in my own eyes, so that I might not have to condemn him before you. Do not blush, therefore, to bear the name of a man, whose life was fatal to none but me, and who did great things for his country. But retain for him who brought you up, and whose son you have believed yourself to be until this day, the same love, the same respect which you felt for him this morning, noble-hearted boy, when you handed him Mila's marriage portion and told